kinderwarden banner

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Kindergarten, I Rebuke Thee

You would not know this by visiting my nondescript suburban neighborhood, but a war is raging here. And the rebel-in-command resides under my roof.

Kingpin heads kindergarten rebellion

And this is not just any war, but THE war. You know--the one against the forces of darkness. Yep. Five -year-old Benjamin is waging jihad against the unreasonable demands of his kindergarten curriculum.

You see, in January, Benjamin decided that he detested kindergarten.

This came as a surprise to me as the first semester seemed to go quite well. He had quickly acquired the trappings of kindergarten success, that is, wrestling buddies he could beat and an adoring first-grader whom he dubbed "wife."

And he finally had access to real junk food via the school cafeteria. This part I know because he often staggered home in an unmistakable chocolate milk haze. (It was much harder to keep my silence when he started to come home with forbidden Dorito smears on his collar.)

So, when Benjamin suddenly announced that he hated school, I was genuinely taken by surprise.

As posted earlier, I tried everything from allowing him to take a few days, er, weeks, off from kindergarten, shortening his daily schedule, skipping homework, bribing him with computer time, toys, candy, and money, and, of course, awarding those spine-tingling"You're Great!' stickers.

Finally, I threatened him with the dreaded ice cream prohibition laws (as stated in the Education Code); Meanwhile, Ben's school threatened me with the equally dreaded compulsory attendance laws (also stated in the Education Code).

As a result, I exercised my option of last resort:

I attended kindergarten with him.

So there I sit in class, every morning, hunched over in a tiny little desk pretending I really enjoy kindergarten. I model rapt attention while my son and ten other pipsqueaks cast furtive glances in my direction wondering how many levels a grown-up has to flunk to get to this point in life.

Apparently, many.

So, the war rages on between Kingpin Benjamin and kindergarten. And I am sort of on the front lines now.

From my perspective, I think he is winning.

I think this because every afternoon, Benjamin proudly brings home the spoils of war: tortured, and mutilated classroom worksheets of the day.

Piles of them.

These worksheets are mostly incomplete and are generously endowed with large blue circles from his exasperated teacher. Obviously, "O" is a mark of surrender in Ben's eyes.

Most of these worksheets have been unceremoniously defaced by my son with some extraordinary high-pressure pencil gouges, as if to show his unmistakable contempt for the besieged kindergarten forces.

Or perhaps pencil-gouging just might be Ben's mark of victory, sort of like Zorro's schtick with the "Z."

When I ask Benjamin why he despises kindergarten, his answers vary but are consistently intriguing. They include the following:

Exhibit A

"Too many girlfriends. It's embarrassing." [See, Exhibit A.] Really, who would want to be called "Sassy Boy" by a first-grader?"

"My legs hurt." Often.

"I didn't do my homework." "No, I do not want to do it. Are you kidding me?"

"School is too long."

"Mom, I need a break."

"It's not fun."

"My shirt is not buttoned. No, I want to go home and button it."

"I'm not comfortable without you."

"Germs. I don't want to make someone sick."

"I'm too tired." [See, Exhibit B.]

Exhibit B

So, really, how can a five-year-old hate kindergarten??? How can anyone hate kindergarten?

Maybe that answer can be found by looking into how kindergarten has changed over the years. Let's start with a realistic analysis of what we really learned in kindergarten. Or what we think we learned in kindergarten. Here are some examples of how in the "olden days," our curriculum ensured that those blissful half days were chock full of learning disguised as big fun:

Fond memories of applying glue to paper, glue to desk tops, glue to nasal cavities, glue to scissors, glue to gum, glue to spit, and glue to spit and gum? You guessed it: chemistry and physics. And really, how better to learn those Newtonian theories than by the failures of glue against the forces of gravity?

And those action-packed games of "Duck, Duck, Goose!" Biology. A highly effective way to teach the scientific classification of waterfowl, I might add.

Remember sitting in a circle to play "Ring Around the Rosy"? Epidemiology. And World History. They were teaching us how to identify the Bubonic Plague by that red ring-like rash and how it impacted those unfortunate civilians who lived in 16th Century England, right?

Recall belting out rounds of the 'B-I-N-G-O' song at the top of your little lungs? Well, that was a spelling test. If you have any doubt as to the effectiveness of this particular teaching strategy, I challenge you to find any human being on this continent that cannot spell that stupid dog's name.

And remember all those silly sounds we learned to sing in "Old MacDonald"? That was really a foray into theoretical issues in language learning such as child, second, and foreign language acquisition, bilingualism, language representation in culture, cognition, and intergroup relations. (If you don't believe me, just read the fine print on the course description in your kindergarten transcript.)

And last, but not least, the buddy system, team-picking, and games of two-square or hop-scotch? Well.... We were undoubtedly learning those pesky math fundamentals. Plus, how better to learn about sociology than by live re-enactment of the caste system of other civilizations and by discovering firsthand that one is indeed an untouchable when it comes to team-picking or the buddy system?

Contrasting all this zany learning-fun with the work of today's kindergartener is outright depressing. Benjamin's class schedule means full days loaded with math worksheets, spelling worksheets, phonics worksheets, Spanish worksheets, and then...homework worksheets. It means sitting from 8 to 3 in a room full of kids who already know how to write and read at the start of the school year. In fact, Benjamin's pint-sized classmates are also mature enough to compare and boast of their academic prowess, and... they already have learned the merits of cheating. Yep. As I sit there trying to "blend" each morning, I watch their half-lidded eyes intently wander over to each other's worksheets while their stubby fingers exercise death-pinches on their gnawed pencils--pencils with symbolically exhausted erasers.

I am not against learning, but what has happened to the concept of making kindergarten fun?

Today, we have kindergarteners pushed to do the academic work that first and second graders were once called upon to do. No more days full of coloring, cutting, singing, painting, napping, playing, and beloved story times.

And no chance to explore the wonders of a good bottle of Elmer's glue.

So maybe, my view from the front lines has enlightened me. Maybe I will join Benjamin's forces after all.

The good news is that Benjamin most certainly will be given a second chance to beat the nefarious forces behind the kindergarten problem. You see, his recent report card indicates that he has flunked and must repeat the school year.

Fortunately, the Head of School applauds Benjamin's efforts to flunk out of kindergarten.

6 comments:

Too true...but..".ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies"... Might have sounded like a kid's tune, but I do believe it had something to with people dying of plague. Maybe we should skip kindergarten!

And so it goes for all grades. Why do you have to know algebra by then end of 1st grade? You have your whole life to learn this drivel. Kids never have fun anymore that isn't either electronic or completely adult supervised. You wouldn't want the little dears to poke their eyes out! How many people your age poked their eyes out as kids? How many were run over by a car (and spanked afterwards as threatened)? Really, kids can't really play like kids now. Hard to understand why.

I remember in Ms. McDougal's kindergarten class we had a circus play and I was the horseback rider. I had a pink stick horse decorated beautifully by my sister and I wore a pink leotard with a pink toto. I thought I was all that and still remember that 45 years later. Sam F. was the strong man! The next year in 1st grade everyone wanted to be named Cindy!

Oh, great. Not only did you get the cool name Cindy, you also got to ride the horse in a pink tutu. Since I was in the class next door to you, I had no stick horse and I had no tutu. So maybe I did spend the rest of my elementary school days yearning to be cindy, cindy, cindy.... No wonder I was so into the glue.

Vote by clicking here!

Vote here too!

Talk back! Subscribe!

Followers

About Me

This blog is about raising kids once I resigned myself to accept that they could not be returned to the test tubes from whence they came. My perspective is that of an "older" parent as well as a bi-coastal spouse raising two young boys and a sometimes step-daughter, pretty much on my own. In my pre-kid state of being, I worked as an attorney, a contributing editor and a copywriter.